Portraits revealed through your current reading position.
Playing the pervert to perfection, the disguised assassin gropes and sniffs Donut's tail until Elle threatens him and hauls him off with the group heading to Li Na.
Minus — the assassin disguised as Elle's superfan Linus — leans hard into his cover at the Lollipop, patting Princess Donut's chain-mail crupper, running his long triple-segmented fingers over her tail, and cooing 'I'm touching her, I'm touching her' while sniffing her and sucking his finger, half-corporeal yet undeniably present. He whispers something crude enough that Donut whirls in outrage, and Elle — who has already threatened to have his 'creepy little fingers' broken in the outside world — abandons the idea of leaving him behind and drags him along with Zhang and Tran to pitch the plan to Li Na. His grotesque performance keeps the AI unsuspicious even as it keeps him embedded and mobile among his intended targets.
A tall gangly half-corporeal soother alien with long, triple-segmented fingers, a fanny pack, and a garish animated Elle fan-shirt; an unsettling adoring leer.
The embedded assassin sustaining his 'pervert tourist' cover, now moving with the group toward Li Na — and closer to his targets.